Linda Booth Sweeney

Dennis Meadows

"More and more educators and businesspeople espouse system thinking today---this short workbook helps you do it! From two of the most gifted systems educators, this is a great tool for discovering the systems thinker in us all."---Peter M. Senge, Senior Lecturer for MIT, founder of the Society for Organizational Learning, author of the Fifth Discipline --

Exercises to Stretch and Build Learning and Systems Thinking Capabilities

The Systems Thinking Playbook

A Guide for Helping Kids Explore Interconnections in Our World Through Favorite Stories

When a Butterfly Sneezes

Gillian Martin Mehers

"The simple, interactive exercises in The Climate Change Playbook can help citizens better understand climate change, diagnose its causes, anticipate its future consequences, and effect constructive change. Adapted from The Systems Thinking Playbook, the twenty-two games are now specifically relevant to climate-change communications and crafted for use by experts, advocates, and educators. Illustrated guidelines walk leaders through setting each game up, facilitating it, and debriefing participants. Users will find games that are suitable for a variety of audiences--whether large and seated, as in a conference room, or smaller and mobile, as in a workshop, seminar, or meeting.

22 Systems Thinking Games for More Effective Communication about Climate Change

The Climate Change Playbook

A snow-day journey with Grandma highlights all of the beauty, magic, and fun of winter. With sparkling flakes calling from outside, this sister and brother bundle up for an outdoor adventure with Grandma. In the hushed woods, they see and hear wildlife thriving under a new blanket of snow. In the bustle of town, they help their grateful Grandpa dig out. Then, it’s time to get sledding! Snowy scenes capture the beauty of freshly fallen snow, and the lyrical verse delights in the magic of playing in the snow and the warm comfort of family.

When the Snow Falls

Katie Salen Tekinbas

Kylie Peppler

Melissa Gresalfi

Rafi Santo

Script Changers shows the ways that stories offer a lens for seeing the world as a series of systems. It provides opportunities for students to create interactive and animated stories about creating positive change in their communities. These projects utilize the Scratch visual programming environment.

Digital Storytelling with Scratch

Script Changers

Spring weather can be exciting! When wind chimes start singing and clouds race across the sky, one little guy knows just what to do—grab his kite! But as the kite soars, the wind picks up even more, and soon he and his grandma are chasing the runaway kite into town. As they pass swirling leaves, bobbing boats, and flapping scarves, breezes become gusts and the sky darkens. Rain is on the way! Can they squeeze in one more adventure before the downpour? Scenes rich with springtime details for little eyes to follow and lyrical verse that captures the changeable mood of the weather make this perfect for spring story times.

When the Wind Blows

Advocates and teachers often find it difficult to communicate the complexities of climate change, because the people they are trying to reach hold so many mistaken assumptions. They assume, for example, that when climate change becomes an obvious threat to our everyday lives, there will still be time enough to make changes that will avoid disaster. Yet at that point it will be too late. Or they assume we can use our current paradigms and policy tools to find solutions. Yet the approaches that caused damage in the first place will cause even more damage in the future. Even the increasingly dire warnings from scientists haven’t shaken such assumptions. Is there another way to reach people? The simple, interactive exercises in The Climate Change Playbook can help citizens better understand climate change, diagnose its causes, anticipate its future consequences, and effect constructive change. Adapted from The Systems Thinking Playbook, the twenty-two games are now specifically relevant to climate-change communications and crafted for use by experts, advocates, and educators. Illustrated guidelines walk leaders through setting each game up, facilitating it, and debriefing participants. Users will find games that are suitable for a variety of audiences—whether large and seated, as in a conference room, or smaller and mobile, as in a workshop, seminar, or meeting. Designed by leading thinkers in systems, communications, and sustainability, the games focus on learning by doing.

Linda Booth Sweeney

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